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Sunday, April 28, 2013

I am about to graduate from college, finally. This is a pretty big deal seeing as I possess enough college credit for two diplomas, and yet! I have not managed to procure even one.
The only things standing in the way are some finals on the metaphysics (peppered with fun phraseology such as: "being as being"). By Friday I will probably kill anyone who says the word "being" in my vicinity.
Anyways I was recently addressing invitations to my graduation, they are very boring.
Observe: (some lack of creativity in whatever tiny graphics department my small very catholic college may possess)

Boooring- Yawn-ity Yawn sauce with a side of lame.

Anyway I was going to send one of these to my brother - but then I was embarrassed at the thought of sending something so mundane all the way across the cussing country, (unless my brother has been suffering from a recent bout of insomnia in which case this invitation could put him directly to sleep).

So of course I started doodling all over it- which is what happens to anything left in my hands for more than three seconds.

and this was the result:

well actually I pretty much like the faculty...hm, maybe I had a bad day.

Sunday, April 21, 2013

It is ever so predictably time for senioritus to run rampant
throughout the colleges and high schools of America. This plague of apathy has
by no means passed over Thomas
Aquinas College- no! rather it has
struck the seniors with unparalleled force.

Tutor: “So who wants to demonstrate this fun Lobachevsky prop?”

Class: bleak silence.

Tutor: “So who even read this prop?”

Class: more silence.

Student: “I forgot how to read.”

Today someone suggested that they just let all the seniors
stop pretending to pay attention in class- but then we would just stop paying
attention earlier…

I would, however, propose as a remedy- that we substitute all
the curriculum books with children’s books and continue to discuss them seminar style.

Which would look something like this:

Tutor: Who fell into the well?

Student1:

Tikki Tikki Tembo-no Sa Rembo-chari Bari Ruchi-pip Peri Pembo

Student2: I believe this story indicates a limit to the way
in which personal names can be used effectively. If you choose to signify your
children by incredibly long names they will have trouble getting help in a
timely manner – and also have a terrible time learning to write their name in
kindergarten.

Tutor: “What do you think of Madeline as a character? What
are her personal struggles and virtues?”

Student1: “I think that Madeline represents, and could even
be said to embody courage- which we can see in the text where it says, ‘to the
tiger in the zoo, Madeline said Poo-poo’. Which is very courageous especially
seeing as, it looks, from the illustration…uh, like the tiger could pretty much
walk out of the cage if he felt like it.”

Student 2: (which in this case is going to be me): And this
corresponds with a common experience of red headed people, you know…that they
are courageous. For example over Spring Break, which I like to call: “Netflix
and Netflix Alone Time”, my red-headed friend said something brave like “you
should put down your laptop and step outside.”

[This is very close to a real life situation and in fact a
friend of mine succeeded in getting me to leave the house and go to the Norton
Simon- to which I said something like: “I hate….going.”]

Student 2: That
personal digression was intended to show that Bemelmans is really pointing
out a universal truth about the courage –or even rashness- of redheads.

Student 3: Buuut she does have a sort of rebellious
attitude, and one might say that it is not virtuous.

Student 2: Well if you had to do everything in two straight
lines, and speak in a set metrical pattern- you might get kind of rebellious
too.

Tutor: “Lastly I wanted to ask two questions about the Hungry
Hungry Caterpillar,

First, how long did it take him to chew a very precise circle
in a lollipop?

And second, why do these illustrations made out of cut up
paper look so tasty?”

All this reminds me of this random thing that I painted on a
T-Shirt once:

Which is the Hungry Hungry caterpillar eating a hole through Madeline.

Sunday, April 14, 2013

I
love Disneyland. A couple months ago we went to Disneyland and stayed at the
Disneyland hotel –
Mickey’s disembodied head was every place that you could think of: the sheets, the carpet, the mirror...

That
is attention to detail folks.

Our
room was Cinderella themed and so it had throw pillows which said, “A dream is
a wish your heart makes, when you’re fast asleep.” (it is required that you sing that part)

Now
if you just think about this for a second you will realize that it is in fact
pretty creepy, especially when you remember that last night you had a dream in
which all of your friends died, you wore a scuba diving suit perpetually, and
your “home” was a bouncy castle.

I love that about dreams, you see a
massive aquarium tank and something says to you, “this is your house,” and you
think, “why yes it is! My house has always been full of aquatic life forms!”
Or when there are tasks that you must accomplish for no apparent reason, the
dream says to you, “ you absolutely have to place a watermelon in the watermelon cannon and shoot it into the courtyard of a neighboring dorm.” And
off you go, required by the rules of dreams to accomplish this important
mission.

Anyway yesterday I had a dream that
I possessed a pet alligator and a capybara – this dream is not a wish my heart
makes. I in no way wish for this to
become true… well a capybara might be ok, but certainly not an alligator.

(twinkly song plays yet again:) "If you keep on believing the dream that you wish will come true."

I
love Disneyland so much that when we went to Disneyland last year I forgot to
drink coffee.

I
forgot to drink coffee.

Actually
I am a morning person, I like mornings, but coffee is an essential part of
them. I was so busy bouncing around like a euphorically happy five year old
that I forgot to drink it at all before we left for Disneyland and five hours
later I had a splitting headache and was close to lying down on the pavement and
mumbling quietly, “so much pain…I love Disneyland so much… headache…haunted
mansion…never been…so happy and in so much pain…at the same time.”

All
of this was resolved by purchasing a small cup of coffee at the low low price
of my first born child and an unblemished lamb.

Sunday, April 7, 2013

Now that my thesis is done I am free to begin a college senior bucket list involving all of the things that I want to do before I graduate.
1. make a vodka melon and drink...eat? it on the beach

Inevitably someone runs around with a hollowed out watermelon rind on their head- I hope that it will be me.

2. play campus wide capture the flag-
The night after my thesis defense I could not sleep. But not because I was thinking about my defense, instead I was trying to decide how to best split the campus into two halves for capture the flag.
Additional bragging stuff: y'all losers have no idea how sneaky I am. I am fantastic at hiding- hiding all six feet of myself. You will never find me.
Of course I mean capture the flag- outside with lots of crap to hide behind- not on one stupid field, and also in the dark. Capture the flag that does not involve sneaking like a ninja and require night owl vision is not capture the flag its tag.

All of this reminds me of the most epic game of my childhood - "raptor" it was based on Jurassic Park, the kid who made it up was lauded as a god among children, we considered him a veritable Homer of creativity.
It goes like this: there are a couple raptors- and everyone else is human,
If the raptor tags you, then you turn into an "egg" and count to 30, while you are an egg if another human tags you then you don't become a raptor and you are saved from transformation into a carnivorous dinosaur, but if you get to 30 then you are born anew as a ferocious raptor.
Two humans can kill a raptor if they join hands and tag one.
Anyway to be successful in raptor was the greatest glory a kid could achieve.
Don't mind me I'm just re-living my childhood, and I wanted to tell you about raptor because it was awesome.